Cycling

Disappointing race at Arno Wallaard Memorial

Last Saturday, Leopard Pro Cycling rode the Arno Wallaard Memorial. In this race, which is part of the Holland Cup, the team did not act according to their capabilities. The eighteenth position of Konrad Gessner is therefore not the result the team hoped to bring home.

Where one could expect a hectic start to the race, the opposite happened. The start of the race was - due to the good weather conditions - controlled and without any danger of echelons. Two riders managed to form the break of the day and later one other attacker joined them. Then, the Leopard team had some bad luck with Colin Heiderscheid, who was involved in a crash, and two bike swaps for Konrad Gessner. It was at this exact moment when six riders attacked from the bunch and bridged to the front quite easily. Since strong teams were involved, the situation looked very dangerous for Leopard. When entering the five final local laps, four new attackers managed to bridge the gap and in the end two riders of the front group managed to stay away. They were caught on the finish line, hence why Alexander Richardson finished first and Gianni Marchand third. For Leopard, German Konrad Gessner tried to save the race with a good result in the bunch sprint, but unfortunately crossed the line as eighteenth.

Lennart Klein, DS: "We started the race quite well, we were positioned in the front, as was planned. We tought that the wind would play a bigger role, but it turned out that there were no echelons created. This made the race pretty easy and the breakaway was formed quickly. It's a shame that Colin crashed and that Konrad had to change bike two time at the moment the second group went up the road. We were also not involved in the third wave of attackers, which is something we need to work and improve on. The eighteenth position of Konrad is also not what we hoped for, but it is important to take the learnings from this race into the upcoming ones."